These two drawings are related to the famous work Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française, published for the first time in its complete form in 1817, which rapidly became the most ambitious editorial project of the revolutionary period. An exceptional account, the whole iconography of the Tableaux is the most complete visual expression of the period. Spread over twenty five years, it includes 221 engraved plates. The work was distributed by subscription with two monthly deliveries, and offered a story in pictures of the French Revolution. Started in July 1791 and composed in the beginning of only 48 engravings accompanied by texts, it was republished five times between 1791 and 1817. Given the political implications of this publication and the troubled period that accompanied it, each edition was different and underwent changes in terms of text and images.

The present two drawings are linked to the subjects of two of the prints of the Tableaux Historiques, numbers 22 and 27, but vary in several respects from them. The first, La Bénédiction des drapeaux illustrates the battalions of La Fayette who at dawn on the 27th September 1789 had gone to Notre Dame, in a march and to the sounds of the drums, to bless the flags. In the church, one can observe the famous Mays large religious paintings traditionally given to the church by the corporation of goldsmiths, which decorate the upper level of the nave. This episode illustrates the domination of La Fayette's coalition in the political life of that period, and embodied the aspirations of the French revolution: the arming of citizens. A few weeks after the taking of the Bastille, the Assembly decided to honor the blessing of the flags in the church of Notre Dame.
In the first edition of the Tableaux, the print (fig.1) that illustrates this episode was executed after a drawing by Jean-Louis Prieur (Prieur, les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution. Catalogue raisonné des dessins originaux, cat. expo. Muse Carnavalet, Paris 2006, no. 26); La Fayette is at the center, his hand extended in a domineering gesture, while one can barely distinguish the archbishop blessing the flags. In Hoüel's drawing, on the contrary, the archbishop is in the centre and addresses La Fayette, who can be recognized on the left. Compared to Prieur's carefully-composed and detailed composition, Hoüel's drawing appears much more disorderly, as if the artist had expressly wished to convey in his composition the energy and frenzy of those uncertain days.

In the second drawing, Hoüel reinterpreted another episode already illustrated by Prieur. He emphasizes once again the presence of La Fayette through his wife: the marquise de La Fayette, seen in the foreground, collecting the alms beside servicemen in uniform. The two drawings illustrate the funeral services of the citizens killed in the siege of the Bastille. In Prieur's drawing, the service takes place in the church of Saint-Jacques-l'Hôpital, but in Hoüel's the scene is set in the church of the Saint-Sepulcre, in the rue Saint-Denis, which was destroyed around 1792. The families of the victims, victors of the 14 July, are represented entirely overwhelmed by emotion. While Prieur's drawing describes meticulously the church's interior, Hoüel's instead emphasizes the presence in the foreground of the marquise de La Fayette and the animosity of the scene. The priest preaches tumultuously from his pulpit, with arms flung open, while in the foreground people gather chairs to hire out, whose profits would be given to the widows of dead citizens. On the walls, black draperies have been set up for the funeral ceremony.

Despite an old label on the back of the frames attributing the two drawings to Jean Duplessi- Bertaux, the author of these sheets must be recognized as Hoüel. In fact, on 4 July 1792 the architect Vaudoyer, who was in charge of the castle of Chavaniac, one of La Fayette's properties, informed La Fayette that the Tableaux historiques ordered by the marquis had arrived at the castle: "I have received the nine Tableaux des événements de la Révolution that you had ordered before your departure from M. Hoüel. They are: L'évènement du Prince Lambesc, Prise d'armes au Garde-Meuble, Prise d'armes aux Invalides, Prise de la Bastille, Intérieur de la Bastille, Quête de Mme de la Fayette au Sépulcre, Bénédiction des drapeaux à Notre-Dame, arrivée du Roi à Paris le 17 juillet, Arrivée du Roi à Paris le 6 octobre (Chavaray, op. cit.). Among these, we recognize the present two drawings; the others, for example La Prise de la Bastille (fig.2), are for the most part kept at the Bibliothéque Nationale de Paris (see La Révolution française. Le Premier Empire, op.cit.). The style, like the dimensions, of the present drawings and of Prise de la Bastille are the same, whereas they are are different from those of Duplessi-Bertaux, as we can observe in other sheets he drew for the Tableaux Historiques, which are now kept in the British Museum, London (see C. Hould, 'Les dessins originaux de Duplessi-Bertaux pour les vignettes des portraits des Tableaux historiques de la Révolution Française', in Symbols, Myths and Images of the French Revolution, Essays in Honour of James A. Leith, University of Regina, Canada, 1998, pp.73-89).

With his friend Moreau le Jeune, Hoüel was involved in the revolutionary events. He was a regular at the "Loge des Neuf Soeurs" where, surrounded by the authors of the American and French revolutions, the artists devoted to the propaganda met.
It is therefore no accident that La Fayette commissioned him to execute this series, which is supposed to reproduce some of the episodes that were already illustrated by Prieur. By reinterpreting the two subjects from his own point of view, in a different manner from the etchings which had already been published, Hoüel emphasizes the role and the presence of La Fayette, more than was the case in the previous prints. Was La Fayette thinking of publishing another edition of the Tableaux Historiques or was it rather a personal souvenir of the glorious and difficult time he had lived?